I want to archive old files off of a Windows 2003 server and would like to copy them to an external drive. The problem is, I want to keep the folder structure as well, not just dump all the files into a generic folder.

I get richcopy to copy the files I want, but it does not keep the security permission intact. Any ideas

This seems to be know problem with RichCopy and one of the reasons why I rarely use it. When transferring large amounts of data, say for a data migration project, try ScriptLogic's SecureCopy if it's in the budget. That app rocks.

Richcopy does copy permissions that are explicit to the folder or file. If I have user1 with full control to the drive and propagate and I have user2 with full control of the subfolder test and I have user3 with full control of a file in the sub directory.

To copy permissions click on View in the toolbar, click on advanced, click on options, click on File attributes. On the right hand side you will see Security Information options.

The following is not including the propagated permissions on the new drive and location.

If I Richcopy the file to another drive then only the user3 permission will be on the file.

If I Richcopy the sub folder than User2 has full control of the folder and user 3 has full control of the file.

If I Richcopy the drive then User1 has full control of the drive, User2 full control of the subfolder, user3 has full control of the file.

Here's a PDF of the Robocopy document. This is invaluable, I have it printed out and refer to it whenever I write new batch files. I also keep copies of any batch files where I do something tricky with it, just for reference.